ayase
State Alchemist
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gō: Episodes 9-17
Oh ho ho ho~ To quote Keiichi, now this is cooking. Advice updated and fully rescinded, absolutely do not watch Gō unless you have seen the original series and Kai. It's relatively easy for anyone to follow up until Episode 13, but after that anyone who hasn't seen the earlier episodes is going to be completely lost because it starts referring back to prior events without further explanation. Easily the most horrific Higurashi has ever been and possibly the most enthralling, I stopped here for a break because it coincides with the end of an arc but I really don't wanna. Episode 15 was particularly great/awful, those cuts were brutal (no pun intended) and I think Rika herself says it best:
These episodes right here are compelling writing. They hit the right notes in terms of making me wonder what the hell is really happening while still giving me enough information to allow me to formulate theories, unlike in Umineko where I felt like I didn't have nearly enough to go on and what I thought I knew I turned out to be untrustworthy. The fact it's Satoko who is looping now and not Rika was foreshadowed enough to see coming, especially when coupled with the revelation from Umineko that she also has a witch counterpart. I might not know why or how that's happening but then neither does Rika. As was the case in Kai, I expect the audience will be figuring that out along with her. That's fun. That's exciting in a way watching Battler flail around with his theories (and coming to conclusions I don't even know how the audience could be expected to draw, given the information provided) never was for me.
And the questions that need answering now are really interesting ones. Hanyū was the one who enabled Rika to loop, what otherworldly being is playing that role for Satoko? Rika's reason for looping was to try and prevent her own death, what is Satoko's? It appears to be to stop Rika from ever leaving Hinamizawa, but why is it important to Satoko to prevent that? Simply for her own sake, for Rika's, or for a larger reason? It seems like this new loop was set off several years after the conclusion of Kai, so why has it returned to the same point in the past as Rika's old loop? Presumably whatever Satoko needs to do, there's a reason it needs to be done then. That or it was a deliberate attempt to hide Satoko's involvement from Rika and make her believe she was still the one looping. Whatever the answers to these many questions, I am hype to find out.
As for the content of these episodes, 9-13 is a retread of an arc from the first series but following that I think it's safe to say Gō becomes completely its own thing, and what a thing it is; a triumphant return to the horror of the first season in particularly gut-wrenching ways. The original series might have its gory moments but Gō is really not a show for the weak of stomach, I think it might have just as much trouble getting past the BBFC uncut as Kira, but for rather different reasons. Oddly enough though, the ratcheting up of the horror seems to have coincided with an increase in (believable) emotional intensity from the characters. Moments in these episodes have almost had me tearing up which is new for Higurashi, this is all very agreeable to me. Love and hate, joy and despair, the deeper the troughs the higher the peaks, or something. And I'm not talking about Mion's boobs this time, her strange t-shirt cleavage (the real mystery of Hinamizawa) seems to have long been banished.
In smaller observations, I can't tell if I'm getting used to these new character designs, if there's a new storyboarder who just happens to be drawing the characters more like the original designs or if they're intentionally being drawn more like that again, Keiichi's sharper jawline seems to be gradually making a comeback and Rika's hair is looking decidedly less helmet-like as time goes by. Oh, and there's also a bit of incidental music in Gō that sounds suspiciously like the opening bars of the Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) which may yet prove quite fitting, I can't say I'm against Higurashi turning into a blood and tear-soaked doomed love story mentally and physically ruinous for everybody involved, those are the best kinds of love stories. But I would loop 500 times and I would loop 500 more...
Oh ho ho ho~ To quote Keiichi, now this is cooking. Advice updated and fully rescinded, absolutely do not watch Gō unless you have seen the original series and Kai. It's relatively easy for anyone to follow up until Episode 13, but after that anyone who hasn't seen the earlier episodes is going to be completely lost because it starts referring back to prior events without further explanation. Easily the most horrific Higurashi has ever been and possibly the most enthralling, I stopped here for a break because it coincides with the end of an arc but I really don't wanna. Episode 15 was particularly great/awful, those cuts were brutal (no pun intended) and I think Rika herself says it best:
These episodes right here are compelling writing. They hit the right notes in terms of making me wonder what the hell is really happening while still giving me enough information to allow me to formulate theories, unlike in Umineko where I felt like I didn't have nearly enough to go on and what I thought I knew I turned out to be untrustworthy. The fact it's Satoko who is looping now and not Rika was foreshadowed enough to see coming, especially when coupled with the revelation from Umineko that she also has a witch counterpart. I might not know why or how that's happening but then neither does Rika. As was the case in Kai, I expect the audience will be figuring that out along with her. That's fun. That's exciting in a way watching Battler flail around with his theories (and coming to conclusions I don't even know how the audience could be expected to draw, given the information provided) never was for me.
And the questions that need answering now are really interesting ones. Hanyū was the one who enabled Rika to loop, what otherworldly being is playing that role for Satoko? Rika's reason for looping was to try and prevent her own death, what is Satoko's? It appears to be to stop Rika from ever leaving Hinamizawa, but why is it important to Satoko to prevent that? Simply for her own sake, for Rika's, or for a larger reason? It seems like this new loop was set off several years after the conclusion of Kai, so why has it returned to the same point in the past as Rika's old loop? Presumably whatever Satoko needs to do, there's a reason it needs to be done then. That or it was a deliberate attempt to hide Satoko's involvement from Rika and make her believe she was still the one looping. Whatever the answers to these many questions, I am hype to find out.
As for the content of these episodes, 9-13 is a retread of an arc from the first series but following that I think it's safe to say Gō becomes completely its own thing, and what a thing it is; a triumphant return to the horror of the first season in particularly gut-wrenching ways. The original series might have its gory moments but Gō is really not a show for the weak of stomach, I think it might have just as much trouble getting past the BBFC uncut as Kira, but for rather different reasons. Oddly enough though, the ratcheting up of the horror seems to have coincided with an increase in (believable) emotional intensity from the characters. Moments in these episodes have almost had me tearing up which is new for Higurashi, this is all very agreeable to me. Love and hate, joy and despair, the deeper the troughs the higher the peaks, or something. And I'm not talking about Mion's boobs this time, her strange t-shirt cleavage (the real mystery of Hinamizawa) seems to have long been banished.
In smaller observations, I can't tell if I'm getting used to these new character designs, if there's a new storyboarder who just happens to be drawing the characters more like the original designs or if they're intentionally being drawn more like that again, Keiichi's sharper jawline seems to be gradually making a comeback and Rika's hair is looking decidedly less helmet-like as time goes by. Oh, and there's also a bit of incidental music in Gō that sounds suspiciously like the opening bars of the Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) which may yet prove quite fitting, I can't say I'm against Higurashi turning into a blood and tear-soaked doomed love story mentally and physically ruinous for everybody involved, those are the best kinds of love stories. But I would loop 500 times and I would loop 500 more...
